Provoking the Enemy

by M. E. Clayton

  The second the door shut, Ace was stepping out of the closet, and I knew he was pissed. I just didn’t know why he was pissed or who he was pissed at. However, I was betting that his anger was directed at me, because…well, why wouldn’t it be?

  He walked past me and had his hand on the doorknob when he turned back to face me. “Countless times she’s found guys up here, yet, I ended up in the closet,” he mused. “Well, fuck you, Ava. I don’t need pity sex. If I’m not good enough to even rank amongst the countless nameless and faceless, then I have no business being up here in the first place. I’ll just get my pussy elsewhere, thanks.” I stood frozen as Ace walked out the door, slamming it behind him.

  I couldn’t move as I stood there thinking how wrong he was about everything except one thing. He was right that he didn’t belong in my room where too many guys to count had come before him. This room, like this house, was tainted.

  I was tainted.

  Good thing my mother interrupted when she had.

  Chapter 14

  Ace~

  I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew it was too early to be up.

  Granted, I hadn’t fallen asleep until the nighttime hours had technically turned into daytime hours, and the sleep I had gotten was shit. But lack of sleep was the least of my problems.

  Ava stuffing me in the closet last night had really fucked me up. And then hearing Elise talk about how many guys she’s caught in Ava’s room had really done some damage. It wasn’t that I cared how many guys had been up there, I knew she had a past and a wild one at that. My issue was that she had hidden me. Why would she hide me when every other guy before me had been flaunted loud and proud?

  It put a chink in the theory that I thought what was happening between us was different; special. But Ava really was a slut, and I really was just another dick in a long line of dicks.

  I decided to quit being a pussy and got out of bed, showered, changed, and headed down for some breakfast. Or lunch, depending on what time it was.

  Walking down the steps I was greeted with the sight of suitcases taking up the bottom of the huge ass foyer. My stomach rolled as the first thought to pop into my head was that Ava was leaving.

  I saw my dad emerging from the back of the staircase and I jerked my chin towards the suitcases and asked, “What’s that?”

  He watched me with a wary eye as I descended the steps and finally stood in front of him. “We’re cutting our stay…short,” he answered.

  “Is that so?”

  He sighed. “Ava brings out the worst in Elise, and their…volatile relationship is causing Elise a lot of undo stress,” he explained. “I think it’s best if we head out earlier than scheduled.”

  “Ava brings out the worst in Elise,” I repeated. I cocked my head. “Are you sure it’s not the other way around?” As much as I was finished with Ava, I wasn’t blind to how evil Elise was.

  My father put his hands on his hips and dropped his head in defeat. I couldn’t imagine the stress that came with being surrounded by people who you were supposed to care about but couldn’t control. That had to be hard for a man like Greg McIntire to accept.

  He looked up at me and I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “Maybe you should come with us, Ace,” he said. “Maybe, just…it’s summer. We’ll be in New York for a month, and then Florida before having to make the trip to Japan. Maybe you can fly back before Elise and I head for Japan.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t want me tagging along any more than I want to tag along,” I told him. “I’m here because you don’t want to have to tell your friends and colleagues that you’re sending prison packages to your only son every quarter. I’m not here because you give an actual fuck about me, Dad. Don’t embarrass yourself and insult my intelligence by pretending you do.” His face colored a bit, but he couldn’t deny my words. I was here to protect his image, not because he really cared if I rotted in prison or not. And then it dawned on me. “Oh, I see,” I chuckled. “You don’t want to leave me here because you’re worried Ava and I will end up making an internet sex tape or make the six o’clock news because we tried to kill each other. You don’t want to see Elise’s obnoxious mansion being burned to the ground on television.”

  “This isn’t funny, Ace,” he spat. “Ava’s volatile and you are not known for making the best decisions. Of course, I’m worried.”

  “Then why did you bring me here to begin with if you thought we’d make a bad combination?” I bit out.

  “Because I didn’t have a choice,” he snapped back. “This is the only stable place I could think of to house you. I can’t leave you at my place unattended.”

  “But you can leave me here unattended?”

  “No,” he sighed. “I thought…I was hoping you and Ava would get along and maybe help to keep each other out of trouble. But I see I was wrong.”

  I arched a brow. “Really?” Sarcasm laced that one word.

  “I can see now that Ava doesn’t need added…situations in her life. Elise told me she was getting better, but it’s clear that she’s not. Her complete disrespect of her mother is proof enough that Ava’s beyond help.”

  My blood went from an annoyed simmer to boiling rage. He knew nothing about Ava except for whatever Elise has felt compelled to share. How dare he say Ava was beyond help? And, yeah, maybe she was. But did that mean you, as a parent, just washed your hands of the problem and jetted off to New York, Florida, and Japan?

  Before I could tell my dad to go get fucked, Elise came waltzing into the room. “Oh, Ace,” she gushed, her act on full display, “has your father told you we’re heading out today?”

  I was pissed at Ava and I wanted nothing to do with her and her games, but this felt wrong. It felt wrong to pretend their leaving wasn’t fucked-up. “Yeah,” I replied, cocking my head to the side. “Dad was just telling me how you’re not interested in making things right with your daughter, so you guys are going to run away to New York, so you can pretend you don’t have two children who…oh, I don’t know…might need their parents to-”

  “That’s enough!” Dad barked. “I will not have you speaking to Elise that way, Ace.”

  I laughed, darkness blanketing everything I felt towards these two. “The truth?” I smirked. “You won’t have me speaking the truth to Elise?”

  Elise stood there, perfectly put together, and fell into her victim role. “Ace, honey, I’m not sure what Ava’s told you, but…she’s a very troubled young girl,” she said smoothly. “I think her father walking out on her really did a number on her mental health.”

  I stuck my hands in my pockets and rocked back on my heels. “And, as her mother, what did you do to help her through that when she was younger, Elise? I mean…you being such a great mother and all, I’m sure you went to great lengths to get the help Ava needed, right?” Her jaw ticked, and I wanted to laugh. What Elise failed to realize was that Ava and I were cut from the same cloth. My father had very little to do with me growing up, but Elise only knew the Greg from the two years she’s been with him. She didn’t know the cheating, abandoning asshole he’s been my entire life, just like all Greg knew was the Elise from the past two years of their relationship.

  “Ava is a grown woman now,” she stated haughtily. “If she deems she needs help getting over her daddy issues, then she can sign up for counseling on her own.”

  Christ, this woman was a piece of work.

  “Ace-”

  I threw my hand up to stop him from saying whatever stupid shit he was about to say. “Look, Dad,” I huffed, “it’ll be fine. I have no desire to follow you anywhere.” I shrugged a shoulder. “If things get too bad here, I’ll rent a hotel for the summer, or go back to Mom’s. Whatever.”

  Then he lit the fuse by saying, “I think you’ve caused your mother enough troubles, Ace. She needs to get her life together herself. She doesn’t need you…weighing her down.”

  I stepped up to him and it took all I had not to swing on him. “Don’t
you mean you’ve caused her enough troubles?” I raged. “You’re the one who cheated on her and left her heartbroken and alone.”

  He straightened his spine “I don’t expect you to understand adul-”

  “I understand that when you make a commitment to someone you should honor it!” I yelled, interrupting his bullshit excuses. “I know you shouldn’t marry someone if you can’t keep your dick in your pants around other women.”

  “Ace!” Elise cried. “That’s enough!”

  “What the fuck is going on in here?” I looked past my dad and saw Ava coming out of the kitchen. Her eyes fell to the suitcases, but she didn’t seem affected by the sight. “I could hear you guys squawking damn near outside.”

  Elise lifted her chin and stood side by side next to my dad. “We have to head to New York sooner than we expected, and…we were just telling Ace goodbye.”

  Ava snorted. “Yeah, sure you were,” she mumbled before heading up the stairs, ignoring us all.

  Elise looked back up at my father and said, “I’m going to have to speak with her about our departure. She tends to get…impulsive whenever I leave her.”

  Dad gave her a tight nod. “I’ll finish packing up the car,” he said, effectively ending our conversation about what a shit person he was. He looked back at me. “Behave yourself, Ace.”

  “Sure thing, Pop,” I threw back lazily. He took a deep breath, but rather than engage, he turned around and went to back to loading their bags into the car.

  My gaze shot towards the staircase, and even though I knew it was none of my business, something compelled me to intrude on Elise and Ava’s goodbye. I knew I shouldn’t care about whatever Elise was about to put Ava through, but I did.

  I did because, I’ve seen the evil in Elise that my dad didn’t see or chose not to see. And I wasn’t about to mill around the house as if things couldn’t get physical upstairs.

  So…I headed upstairs.

  Chapter 15

  Ava~

  I wasn’t really surprised, but unlike all the other times Elise has run away, this time, she was leaving me with Ace in the house and that had me feeling greatly anxious.

  I wasn’t used to unfamiliar feelings, and I’ll be the first person to admit that I didn’t know how to handle them. I was messed-up, and I knew it. I knew all my choices were a result of not being able to face just how out of control my feelings were. I knew that.

  I knew that, yet I still didn’t know how to fix it. Hell, up until last night, I hadn’t even realized that I wanted to fix it; to fix myself. I’ve been forcing myself to feel nothing for years, and finally come face-to-face with those feelings I’ve been pretending didn’t exist, had me feeling…exhausted. It was the reason I came upstairs instead of joining in on whatever was going on between them all downstairs. Normally, I was up for a good fight, but last night had left me out of sorts.

  I liked Ace, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how to tell him that.

  “Ava?” I closed my eyes and let out a deep sigh at the sound of my mother’s voice.

  I turned to face her as she walked into my room. “What?”

  “Ace has agreed to stay here throughout the summer, but…” She lifted her chin and started blinking her eyes at me. “Is it too much to ask that you…don’t taint the poor boy? He’s been through enough.”

  It shouldn’t hurt anymore.

  It shouldn’t.

  I knew this was more about her than it was about me, but I was so goddamn tired of it. I was tired of being blamed. I could accept being broken, but I was sick and tire of being blamed for being broken. Or, more to the point, I was tired of Elise acting as if she wasn’t the reason I was broken. I knew I was old enough to seek help for my issues, so that was on me. But I was tired of her exonerating herself from our reality.

  “Taint him?” I mused.

  She straightened her posture and said, “It pains me to have to say this about my own daughter, but you’re poison, Ava. You taint and destroy anything and anyone who comes near you. You continue to live in the past, and that doesn’t benefit anyone. Including you.”

  I stepped to her because I wasn’t going to let her hide from me. “Continue to live in the past?” I snarled. “You let your child molesting boyfriend have his way with me when I was nine-fucking-years-old! And I’m just supposed to get over that because it’s an inconvenience for you?”

  “Keep your voice down!” she hissed.

  “See?” I ranted. “Even now, all you care about is that Greg might overhear what a monster you are. You accuse me of living in the past, but you’re ignoring it altogether.”

  “What do you want from me, Ava?” she squealed. “I can’t change the past.”

  “No, you can’t,” I agreed. “But you can own what you did. Instead, you act like my behavior has nothing to do with what you let happen to me.”

  She threw her hands up, fake polite composure all gone. “Oh, come on, Ava,” she scoffed. “You’re not a child anymore. You’re using what happened as an excuse to sleep around. You’re old enough to realized that spreading your legs for any boy who looks your way is not the recommended therapy for your…uh, situation.”

  My brows shot up. “My situation? Are you fucking kidding me?” I could feel the tears forming, but at this point, I didn’t know if they were from anger or pain. All my emotions were jumbled into one big mess. “I spread my legs, so that no guy will ever have to feel like he needs to force them open ever again!”

  She had enough of a conscience to flush. “You’re not nine anymore,” she pointed out. “You…you’re not helpless.”

  I knew I had anger issues. I knew I was violent and unhinged. I knew my mind was strong where my heart was numb. I knew I was messed-up. But I’ve never wanted to beat someone to death the way I wanted to beat on my mother in this moment. She gave me life, and she made sure I had a home, food, clothes, etc. all these years.

  But. I. Wanted. To. Kill. Her.

  “So, all those women…all those women over the age of nine who’ve been raped or attacked, it’s their fault?” I asked incredulously.

  “That’s not what I meant!” she yelled. “Quit putting words in my mouth!”

  “Then what did you mean?” Implying that I was old enough to protect myself now suggested that women who’ve been attacked brought it upon themselves, and that was far from the reality of it.

  “I just meant that if you’re going to be a whore, then be one. Quit using what Peter did to you as an excuse,” she harrumphed.

  “What Peter did to me?” She threw me a tight nod. “All Peter did to me was rob me of my virginity. You’re the one who stole my innocence. When you turned a blind eye, after catching him molesting me, that is what ruined me, Mother. You kept dating a man who fucked nine-year-olds!”

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “This is not…lower your voice!”

  The pain was unexpected.

  The torrent of emotions and pent up betrayal came out of nowhere.

  I’ve fought with my mother countless times, but this time was different. This time I was searching for validation that, yeah, while I was jacked-up, I had reason to be. I had a legitimate reason for my confusion and horrible choices. I had a reason to envy the Emersons of the world and cherish the Delaneys of the world.

  I wanted someone to step back and say, “Okay, it’s messed up, but you’ll get through this.”

  “You let your boyfriend used me for his perverted pleasures, and instead of throwing him in prison, or getting me help, you kept dating him. What in the hell is wrong with you?!” I threw at her. “And even after you dumped him, finally, you still didn’t help me. You left me to my own devices to fix myself. Well, I have news for you, Mother. Children aren’t meant to fix themselves. That’s the whole point behind having parents!”

  “You could have asked me for help when you got older, Ava,” she snapped, putting this back on me again. “But you didn’t. You chose to just fuck every boy who said hi to you.”
/>
  “Because no one was ever going to force me again!” I yelled again. “I’d rather be a whore, and give them all easy access, than ever feel helpless like I had when I was nine ever again. I will never be at the mercy of another man’s whims. Ever!”

  “I am not going to stand here and take the blame for something you brought upon yourself, Ava,” she announced. “You could have said something the first time Peter made you uncomfortable, but you didn’t. How was I supposed to know you weren’t asking for it?”

  I lunged towards her, but before I could reach her, I was encased in a pair of strong, unbreakable arms. That didn’t stop me from failing about, trying to get to her. “You fucking bitch! You…you…”

  “Stop,” Ace’s voice commanded near my ear. “Fuck her, Ava. I got you, baby.”

  I was crying, screaming, and falling apart, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I didn’t want to. “You’re worse than a child molester, Elise!” I screamed. “You’re a trafficker. I hope all those diamonds Peter draped you in were worth it!”

  “Stop it, Ava,” Ace repeated, and I broke down in his arms. I could hear him telling Elise, “Get out, Elise. Get out and do not come back or I will tell my dad everything I just heard.”

  “Ace-”

  “Get the fuck out, or I swear to God, I will kill you with my bare hands, Elise,” he threatened. “Get the fuck out!”

  I heard the door shut, and I knew as sure as I knew my name, she was rushing downstairs to get Greg out of the house and on their way. I wasn’t sure if he heard us, but the fact that he hadn’t raced upstairs said a lot, one way or the other.

  “Ava,” Ace breathed in my hair. “Baby-”

  I wrenched myself out of his hold.

  No one was supposed to know about Peter. Even Delaney didn’t know about Peter. And instead of staying downstairs, minding his own business, Ace was up here listening to the ugly truth about me and what Elise had let happen to me.

  I knew none of this was his fault, and I knew this had nothing to do with him. But that didn’t lend any way to the emotions currently rumbling inside the core of my soul. The first guy I’ve ever felt something for, and he heard it all.